A WASP THAT PROVISIONS ITS NEST WITH QUEEN ANTS 385 



cates very clearly that this wasp originally had the storing 

 habits of the allied genus Cerceris and of Philanthus punctatus 

 and has secondarily acquired the Bembecine method of feeding 

 its young. I am, therefore, inclined to regard the Bembecine 

 method as derivative, or secondary, and find further confirma- 

 tion of this view in the fact that in all cases, except Lyroda, the 

 prey of those solitary wasps which feed. their larvae from day to 

 day, belongs to highly specialized groups of insects of com- 

 paratively recent phylogenetic origin — ants in the case of Aphil- 

 anthops, honey bees in the case of Philanthus apivorus and higher 

 Diptera in the case of Bembex. 



The species of Aphilanthops are not the only solitary wasps 

 that prey on ants, for some four small Mediterranean Crabronids, 

 belonging to two genera, are known to provision their nests 

 with these insects. Ferton (1890) describes the habits of Fer- 

 tonius luteicollis Lep. in Algiers, w T here it digs its nest in sandy 

 soil, making burrows only about 4 cm. deep, but also nests in 

 the crevices of walls. It preys exclusively on workers of Tapi- 

 noma erraticum Latr., storing in each cell 40 to 50 of these 

 strong-smelling ants, which are merely paralyzed and far from 

 motionless at first. There are three generations of the wasps 

 in the course of the year. Later (1895) Ferton described from 

 Corsica a second species of the same genus (F. formicarius 

 Fert.) which also preys on Tapinoma erraticum workers and 

 closely resembles F. luteicollis in its other habits. In 1893 

 Emery described the habits of Brachymerus curvitarsis H. Sch., 

 a Crabronid that preys on the workers of Liometopum micro- 

 cephalum Panz. in Italy. He saw it pounce on the ants as they 

 were moving along in files. The nest was found in a fig-tree, 

 in the abandoned burrows of a longicorn beetle. The ants were 

 stored in numbers (about 40) in each cell and were "impar- 

 faitement paralyses, quelques uns capables meme de se trainer 

 sur leur pattes." More recently (1901) Ferton has figured a 

 second species of the same genus (B. $-notaUts Jur.) which, 

 like the species of Fertonius, preys on workers of Tapinoma 

 erraticum. 



It is interesting to note that all of these Crabronids prey on 

 strong-smelling ants of the subfamily Dolichoderinas and that 

 they select only the workers. Ainslee's observations show that 

 the latter statement is also true of Aphilanthops tauritlus but 



